Tuesday 24 April 2012 17.49 EDT
First published on Tuesday 24 April 2012 17.49 EDT

• Some things we think we know. Take the record of Chilean strongman Augusto Pinochet. Seems clear cut: he took power through a coup in 1973. Good for him, but not for the 3,000 or more people who were killed or "disappeared". On his death in 2006 the New York Times described him as "a notorious symbol of human rights abuse and corruption". Still, Margaret Thatcher always liked him. There must have been something to love. And that's the sort of view being taken by Ukip and the Tories in the European parliament, where today two of Britain's finest – Conservative Nirj Deva and our dear friend, the Ukipian Godfrey "eight pints" Bloom, invited fellow parliamentarians to think again about the man who made others disappear. "The seventeen-year Pinochet regime is often portrayed by European media as totalitarian, and sometimes pure evil. But how does this fit with the fact that later governments, all democratically elected, have continued the Pinochet line and not strayed from his reforms which have dominated Chile ever since?" Yes, think again: "The European media have often been biased against Pinochet and his regime, but what does the regime have to say for itself? This presentation will explore these questions via key persons from the regime." Some seemed open to the idea, others not so – Labour's Richard Howitt among them. "The reality of the Pinochet regime was years of oppression and bloodshed," he said. He didn't go. Typical; another woolly liberal, stuck in the old ways.

• It's Murdoch week at the Leveson inquiry as the good lord probes the relationship between the press and politicians. Simple, really. Rupert said jump, they said "how high?". But it's not just Rupert. On Monday Aidan Barclay talked at length about his links with Big Dave. They talk; indeed Dave was told to ring the Telegraph editor every day during the election – he sends the PM advisory texts. And interesting, isn't it, that Barclay told Leveson that just recently he complained to George Osborne about the burden on UK business and issues with visas for Chinese workers. Where is Damian Green, the immigration minister, to be found this week? "Visiting China to discuss immigration", says Downing Street. There, that's a good boy.

• High excitement at the release of the blockbuster Avengers Assemble, with a stellar cast, high action – and gasps from the reviewers as they wonder whether the censors of the film fell asleep on the job. The film is certificate 12A, as perhaps befits a spinoff from Marvel Comics distributed by Disney. But what awkward family questions will be prompted by the scene in which the baddie Loki, played by Tom Hiddlestone, loudly insults Scarlett Johannson's Black Widow by calling her a "mewling quim". Fan websites are already buzzing with astonishment that the insult survived the cut. Loki speaks in elegant faux-Elizabethan English. Perhaps that's how it got through. But then as now, Britain was broken. The Elizabethans could be pretty filthy.

• Back to the 70s, courtesy of Dominic Sandbrook's new book Seasons in the Sun: The Battle for Britain, 1974-1979. We like the text. But more than that we like the index. The big beasts of the time are all there. "Heath, Edward: Leans nonchalantly on an Italian deep-freeze, page 425", "stacks books on his chairs to stop Thatcher sitting down, 257", "stares at Thatcher with undisguised hatred, 258,324". Also "unconvincing attempt to look cuddly", on page 158. There's "Wilson, Harold: Compares himself to a big fat spider, 452", "complains of the 'squitters', 38, 418" – poor Harold. And on page 39, Wilson "polishes off five brandies", then "polishes off six brandies". Was that to cure the squitters? Sandbrook doesn't say.

• Finally, it is the way of Max Hastings, the inveterate columnist, to be robust. But does he ever have a thought for the consequences? Says Max, beginning his Sunday Times review of Edward Lucas's Deception – a book on post-Soviet espionage – "There are about 200,000 Russians living in Britain, and few of them earn their living by honest toil." Mind how you go there, Max. Don't take tea in any posh hotels.